// By Zhang Jing, China Daily Before going to University of Cambridge for an Mphil degree in Finance in the UK this September, Shao Han, 22, wants to spend his summer with ACCION International to grant financial help to farmers in Bayan, Heilongjiang province in Northeastern China. The program in Bayan is collaboration among International Finance... 

// From The Economic Times HYDERABAD: India’s microfinance model is not sustainable due to its overdependence on the government, the huge subsidy given by the state and the lack of a regulatory framework to check the exploitation of the poor, sectoral practitioners from Bangladesh say. They are of the opinion that the Bangladeshi model is... 

// By Reem Abdellatif, Daily News Egypt Egypt’s mobile phone subscriptions topped 74 million in April, an increase of 27 percent from the previous year. The country’s banked population, however, is not nearly as large, coming in at around 10 percent. Such a discrepancy in numbers suggests that a marriage of the two sectors would be a match made... 

Deadline for Submission: August 5th 2011 The Microsavings and Payments Innovation Initiative (MPII) invites Expressions of Interest (EOI) for funding to conduct rigorous, field-based research on savings products and services as well as payments and money transfer channels for the world’s poor and financially excluded. EOI submissions are due... 

// IDB News Release More than 750,000 low-income families in Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic to benefit from the project Patrimonio Hoy, the housing microfinance program of CEMEX, will expand lending to low-income families in Mexico and four other Latin American countries with a partial credit guarantee of... 

// From IRIN Myanmar President Thein Sein’s statement in May that a sustainable microfinance system should be established has sparked interest among aid workers and those already involved in the country’s embryonic microfinance system. The president made the announcement at a rural development and poverty alleviation workshop where he acknowledged... 

// By Odidison Omankhanlen, Nigerian Tribune IN continuation of its holistic overhaul of the banking sector, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Tuesday, released a new set of guidelines for microfinance banks (MFBs) operating in the country. According to the apex bank, five years after the launch of Microfinance Policy, Supervisory and Regulatory... 

// By Christopher Maregesi, The Citizen The fate of loans that councillors across the country have applied to National Microfinance Bank (NMB) depends on the sanction to be given by the ministry of Regional Administration and Local Governments. Reports received in Bunda said that the bank has written to the ministry, seeking its consent before... 

// By Kristin Palitza, Inter Press Service CAPE TOWN – Projects to fight climate change are being designed all around the world. But only five percent of them can be financed with the current international funds available, which means resources have to be used more wisely. Microfinance could be one solution. Climate change is one of the greatest... 

// From Asia Banking and Finance AndaraLink offers 40mn Indonesians access to financial services via mobile terminals. Bank Andara and Fundamo’s AndaraLink is the first of its kind in the world, enabling MFIs to provide 40 million financially excluded Indonesians with access to previously unavailable financial services via mobile terminals...